The decision to talk to Stella Laidlaw was an impulse, like the impulse to drive the receptionist home. James had made it clear that he would be working all afternoon on the Express and Ramsay had never talked to Stella alone. The discovery that Mary Raven had a secret lover made it important to check James Laidlaw’s movements. He was the most likely candidate, and if James were having an affair with the young reporter, Stella might have guessed. That might explain the woman’s nervousness, her lapses into silence, her brittle bursts of conversation.

He drove through the affluent suburbs of the town towards the river. The houses here were older, mock-Tudor mansions with long, sloping gardens and high walls to ensure privacy. Here the children would not be allowed into the street to play. Diana’s sister lived in one of these houses, close to the Otterbridge Lawn Tennis Club, and even approaching the area made him uneasy. He was reminded of awkward, tedious evenings of conversation when his main objective was to say as little as possible and Diana, as bored as he was, became increasingly more outrageous. Diana had always laughed at his discomfort. She had told him to relax and be himself. She loved him, she had said. Her family would, too, if he allowed them to get to know him. Besides, they were too boring to bother about. He did not have her confidence and had never found it that easy.

Ramsay drove onto the gravel drive and waited in the car for a moment, collecting his thoughts, deciding the most important questions to ask. When he walked towards the front door, he saw Stella Laidlaw staring at him from an upstairs window. She must have recognised him, but even after he had rung the doorbell and stood back onto the drive to wait, she did not move. Their eyes met and she stared at him with horror.

When at last she came to open the door, it might have been a different woman. She was smiling, gay, almost flirtatious, but managed just to miss the right tone. She asked him to sit by the fire, suggested that she make him coffee with an insistence that was embarrassing. She was trying too hard to make a good impression.

“Now, Inspector,” she said. “How can I help you?” But as she spoke, she glanced at the small gilt clock on the mantelpiece, and he thought that despite her hospitality she wanted him gone as soon as possible.

“You will have heard that Charlie Elliot was murdered,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, and giggled nervously. “And we all blamed poor Charlie for Alice Parry’s murder. You must feel rather foolish, Inspector, to have allowed another tragedy to occur.”